Totally agree: "I salute the courage and perspicacity of Amilcar Vital
in reaching a realistic conclusion"
Living in a Latin American context I think that one of the biggest
stumbling blocks to many areas in Latin America, including disability
issues, is the entrenched belief that the West holds the answers. I
have had more than one stand-up argument with folk who have never
travelled outside their home state (village even) yet are prepared to
swear their lives that there is no unemployment / homelessness / AIDS /
hunger / domestic violence (pick your issue) in the northern
hemisphere. On one hand, Hollywood et al have a lot to answer for. Our
landlord here actually told us that our septic tank would never need
emptying, presumably because he thought that white people never use the
toilet, a la Hollywood. On the other hand, to let go of those beliefs
is a brave decision. If I have none of the answers and you have all of
the answers, then all I need to do is to find a way to access your
answers. If you don't have any answers either, then maybe we both have
to face the harsh but enriching reality that the answers we think we are
looking for might not even exist, and our best way out of here will be
to support each other as we scratch out our tune on the roof.
Hazel
m. miles wrote:
> .
> I salute the courage and perspicacity of Amilcar Vital in reaching a realistic
> conclusion, and apologise again for the lack of pragmatic propositions from
> this list.
>
> My own field is the study of social responses to disability and PWD in the
> present and historical past of Asian, Middle Eastern and African countries.
> The absence of practical responses is also found there -- for example in an
> old story about a mad man at Baghdad, who was bothered by small boys.
> They followed him everywhere, shouting rude remarks and throwing stones
> (as is customary in many countries today). He sometimes tried to beat off the
> boys, or to throw stones back at them, but this retaliation merely attracted
> more boys to harrass him.
>
> One day, he took refuge from the boys by climbing over the wall of a big
> compound. Once inside, he found that he was in the grounds of the
> Governor's residence. He thought to himself, "I will go and plead my case
> with the Governor, to see if he can give me some relief from these accursed
> boys. Creeping up to the big house, he peeped through a window. But what
> he saw inside made him lose hope, and he began to move away toward the
> outer wall again. Then some guards noticed him, and caught hold of him and
> dragged him inside, and brought him before the governor, who demanded to
> know why he was skulking about in the grounds of the house.
>
>> "Highly Respected Governor", said the madman, "my humble apologies
>>
> for disturbing Your Greatness. I was going to ask you to help me against the
> street boys who bother me all day long. But then, through the window, I saw
> Your Greatness sitting on the throne, with six servants waving fans at you
> from every side. Then I understood, that a man who has six servants fanning
> him, because he cannot even keep the flies away from his own face, would
> be completely useless in helping me against the street boys. So I was going
> away from your house, when your guards caught me. Very sorry for giving you
> any trouble!"
>
>
> (Well... even Barak Obama can sometimes catch his own fly...)
>
> miles
>
> *************
> On Sun, 26 Jul 2009 21:22:42 -0300, Vital Amilcar
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
>> Dear researchers, non researchers and people that try to understand a
>> little more of our world,
>>
>> Thank you very much for your e-mail, when i read i see your point
>> regarding what i have wrote in here, yes we cant afford the luxury of
>> making an endless discussion about the subject while there are many
>> people throughout the world, struggling about living with a disability
>> or not. My point is that even in the so called developed countries,
>> where there are developed people and more conditions to carrie out any
>> discussions, if we remain stucked talking about things such as the
>> name we should call the ones who have a disability or who is against
>> or not in anything wont be of any usage.
>>
>> Indeed, there isn't a solution about the matter even in the so
>> called developed countries, and i m sure that i wont find any in here,
>> as we don't have a solution for everything even in your reality,
>> indeed that the world doesn't need any thesis or so about something
>> that have being writing, but locally we do need and still gonna need
>> to understand such subjects even if only to know the local phenomena
>> and going with it start to look at national and international
>> experiences.
>>
>> The fact is, that is not a solution, that never been and never
>> will, what we can do is to learn and try empirically find out how to
>> just improve, and keep on it.
>>
>> Regards
>>
>>
>
> ________________End of message________________
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